Six Years of Septembers
Friends in pie, it’s mid-September; the leaves are at the very beginning of their glorious reveal, the evenings have a distinct chill, and in the wee hours of the morning I can hear wild turkeys clucking and calling their way toward breakfast. Fall is a wonderfully nostalgic season for me as I’ve come to realize that as the days get shorter I have a tendency to make large life choices… as though I can’t bear to let the season have all the fun.
Six years ago I peered into a magical CSA veggie box and gazed unwittingly onto my future. The world’s most perfect pie pumpkin gazed back with a knowing tilt to its stem and an unabashed wink in its eye. I fell in love that fall. Roasting pumpkins, swirling honey, whipping endless clouds of whipped cream, warming frozen hands with mugs full of spiced cider and whiskey laced hot toddies, dancing in the kitchen in my stocking feet with a boy I was falling head over heels for, and dreaming and scheming my way toward a pie filled adventure.
Five years ago I pushed my way through a set of doors that said ‘Bakers Only Please’ for the very first time. I spent a year earning my place among fierce, loyal and endlessly inspiring lady bakers and at the end of that year found my life entirely full. I accumulated mentors who were also friends, callouses that only a well worn rolling pin could make, the ability to deadlift a fifty pound bag of flour with ease, and a notebook full of recipes that I’d dreamed up.
Four years ago I published a book. In all of my dreaming and scheming I had never once thought about the possibility of someone recognizing that this pursuit of passion was worthy of being shared, shouted about, and enveloped within the extraordinary pages of an actual book. All my life I have consumed books because they are as essential to my well being as breathing, so the fact that there is a book out there with my name on it still leaves me giddy with boundless amazement.
Three years ago I was ‘pee-your-pants-and-then-hyperventilate’ scared out of my mind as I signed the lease to my shared kitchen space and experienced my very first week of owning and operating Teeny Pies. Rather than having to earn a place, I found myself on equal footing with other founders, fellow makers and dream followers. I was a boss, able to commiserate with crappy weather, slow markets, and confounding customers as well as celebrate the absolute exhilaration of selling out, signing on a new wholesale account, and hiring help for the first time. I honed my craft, created a brand, made hundreds upon hundreds of pies and then sold them to people who loved them, who had opinions about them, who anticipated them, who made space in their budgets (and stomachs) for them. I may have made them with my own two hands, but those pie loving people were the first people who made Teeny Pies a business in real life.
So, here we are. Six years of saying yes, of working endlessly hard, of taking huge and intimidating leaps of faith, and I can’t help but revel in the wonderful adventure of it all. It’s September again, which means it’s time to make some changes.
